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About the Special Track
Design and modeling are concepts and activities common to several disciplines in Science, Education, and Technology. Consequently, Design and modeling provide effective concepts, theories, methodologies, and tools for intra- and inter-disciplinary communications. The World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics: WMSCI might provide synergic relationships with a special track on Design and Modeling, and vice versa. Attendees of these events might gain insights and have effective analogical thinking in both the formal and informal communication they usually have in meetings, symposia, and conferences. On the other hand research activities are also common to several disciplines in Science, Education, and Technology, as has reciprocal relationships with Design and Modeling. Descriptive models are used in Science, and prescriptive modeling activities are used in designing scientific activities, educational methodologies, and engineering or technological products. Consequently, Design, Modeling, and Research are transdiciplinary concepts that might serve well in disciplinary and inter-disciplinary communication.
 Purpose
Consequently, the purpose of organizing the Special Track on Design and Modeling in Science, Education, and Technology: DeMSET 2025 is to promote intra- and inter-disciplinary communication by means of common concepts, methods, and tools used in different sub-disciplines and disciplines. Formal presentations might be made in disciplinary and interdisciplinary terms, while informal inter-disciplinary communication could produce insights and analogical thinking.
Design and Research in Science, Technology, and Education
The Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon affirmed that design is an essential ingredient of the Artificial Sciences and, consequently, a required process in professional activities, especially in Engineering, Architecture, Education and Business. Consequently, Design is also essential in educating in any discipline included in the Artificial Science. Ranulph Glanville, president of the American Society for cybernetics and expert in design theory, affirms that “Research is a variety of design. So do research as design.” “Design is key to research. Research has to be designed.” Frayling asserts that “doing science is much more like doing design.” “Both Design and Research are characterized by iterative cycles of generating ideas and confronting them with the world.” Both Science and Design use generative and evaluative thinking, but Science stresses the evaluative one (by logic, deduction, strict and mostly explicit definitions, verbal notations, etc.), while Design focuses on the generative one (which is usually associative, analogical, and inductive thinking, using loose definitions, and supported by visual representation as doodling, sketching, diagramming, prototyping, etc.) Consequently, design is essential ingredient in education in both: in Artificial and in Natural Science.
An increasing number of authors, especially in the last decade, are stressing the relationships between Design and Research. Design is, implicit or explicitly, an essential activity in Natural Science research, and an explicit backbone of the Artificial Sciences (Engineering, Architecture, etc.). In turn, Design, implicitly or explicitly, includes research activities. In Natural Sciences, design activities (hypothesis construction, experiment design, etc) are means used in research, with the purpose of generating knowledge to be evaluated (validated and/or verified). In Artificial Sciences research is one of the means used to generate the knowledge required for design effectiveness. In other words, Design is a mean for Research, and Research is a mean for Design, including educational research and educating for research.
Design and research are related via cybernetic loops in the context of means-ends logic. A visual schematization of the most fundamental relationships between Design and Research is shown below.
 Design and Modeling
Design processes are characterized by sequential and/or iterative cycles of modeling, including cognitive and collaborative modeling, qualitative and quantitative modeling, hard and soft modeling, mathematical and verbal modeling, etc.
As it is known, modeling is essential in scientific and engineering activities. The complementary differences, including polar opposites, between Science and Engineering (between Natural and Artificial Sciences), cause a differentiation in modeling and models between both kinds of activities. The logic of Science is the logic of the “what-is”; the logic of Engineering is the logic of 1) “what-might-be”, “what-is-possible” and 2) “how to make it happen” (More details regarding this issue can be found at www.iiis.org/Nagib-Callaos/Engineering-and-Meta-Engineering). Consequently, modeling in Science is mostly oriented to theoretical or abstract semiotic representations of the cognitive representations (or constructions) of what scientists perceive in the world as it actually is, but modeling in Engineering is oriented to representing mental constructions of “what is possible” (“what is not yet”). Therefore, scientific modeling is a kind of meta-representational process (communicational representation of a cognitive representation of the world), while engineering modeling is a kind of pro-presentational activity (representation of what does not exist yet but which possibly might exist).
Both kinds of modeling might be qualitative, quantitative, or hybrid as it is in most cases. Explicit mathematical models are related to the empirical world by means of explicit or implicit qualitative bridges, which include verbal (for example, mathematically defined words) and visual (diagrams, for example) links to the real world, so the model can be useful for their potential users.
“Qualitative modeling concerns the representations and reasoning that people use to understand continuous aspects of the world...[A] variety of qualitative representations...have been developed for quantities and for relationships between them, providing a kind of qualitative mathematics.” . Quantitative Mathematics is related to what “MacLachlan has called a ‘mathematical technologist’™. Such a man will have a good knowledge of academic mathematics, but in addition will know how to apply this knowledge to obtain a complete approximate solution, with full numerical calculations, of an engineering or other problem. Much of modern academic mathematics is of a qualitative nature. The mathematical technologist...will supplement [mathematical formulations] with detailed quantitative knowledge, giving all the information required to any desired degree of approximation.” (“Technology or Quantitative Mathematics Technology,” Nature 158, 683-684 (16 November 1946), doi:10.1038/158683a0).
We are using, the word mathematics, in the context of Engineering, with the senses of “qualitative mathematics” and “Mathematical Technology or Quantitative Mathematics”. The later is especially important in Engineering Modeling.
Suggested Types of Submissions:
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Articles related to Models, design, and/or Reflective Practice in Modeling in Science, Education and/or Engineering |
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Articles related to specific models and designs presented as case studies, where the model, or the design, is presented with a reflection on the modeling or designing method followed, and its potential applicability in other disciplines or areas. |
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Articles related to designing and modeling methods and methodologies. |
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Articles related to Meta-Design and/or Meta-Modeling: models of modeling processes, methods, and/or methodologies; Designing methodologies for design activities. |
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Articles related to differences among different kinds of modeling or designing, their respective pros and cons, and/or the ways of synergistically combining or mixing them for specific purposes, as it is the case in some specific engineering problems. |
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Articles related to syncretistic, eclectic, or integrative methodologies in hybrid modeling and designing. |
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Suggested Major Areas or Tracks
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Qualitative Models and Modeling in Science and Engineering |
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Quantitative Models and Modeling in Science and Engineering |
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Hybrid Models and Modeling in Science and Engineering |
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Educational Research, Design, and Modeling |
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Research Education |
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Design and Models. Design via Interactive Modeling and Prototyping |
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Design Research. Research through, into, by, and/or for Design. |
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Research Design. Action-Research and Design. |
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Design and Modeling Methods and Methodologies. |
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Design and Models of Material Objects |
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Design of Activities and Organizational Services |
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Design of Complex Systems or Environments for Living, Playing, and Learning |
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Organizational, Reviewing, and Selection of Best Papers Policies
Technical Keynote Speakers
Technical keynote speakers will be selected from early submissions because this selection requires an additional evaluation according to the quality of the paper, assessed by its reviewers, the authors' CV and the paper's topic.
Reviewing Process
All Submitted papers/abstracts will go through three reviewing processes: (1) double-blind (at least three reviewers), (2) non-blind, and (3) participative peer reviews. These three kinds of review will support the selection process of those papers/abstracts that will be accepted for their presentation at the conference, as well as those to be selected for their publication in JSCI Journal. Details regarding this subject can be found at https://www.iiis2025.org/demset/Website/MMRPfMDC.asp.
Details regarding the Acceptance Policy can be found at https://www.iiis2025.org/demset/Website/AcceptancePolicy.asp
Authors of accepted papers who registered in the conference can have access to the evaluations and possible feedback provided by the reviewers who recommended the acceptance of their papers/abstracts, so they can accordingly improve the final version of their papers. Non-registered authors will not have access to the reviews of their respective submissions.
Virtual Participation
Submissions for Face-to-Face or for Virtual Participation are both accepted. Both kinds of submissions will have the same reviewing process and the accepted papers will be included in the same proceedings.
Pre-Conference and Post-conference Virtual sessions (via electronic forums) will be held for each session included in the conference program, so that sessions papers can be read before the conference, and authors presenting at the same session can interact three days before and during the conference, as well as up to three weeks after the conference is over. Authors can also participate in peer-to-peer reviewing in virtual sessions.
Invited Sessions Organizers
Registration fees of an effective invited session organizers will be waived according to the policy described in the web page (click on 'Invited Session', then on 'Benefits for the Organizers of Invited Sessions'), where you can get information about the ten benefits for an invited session organizer. For proposing to organize an Invited Session, please click here.
Best Papers
Authors of the best 25%-30% of the papers presented at the conference (included those virtually presented) will be invited to adapt their papers for their publication in the Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics.
One best paper of each session included in the program will be selected by the respective session’s co-chairs after consulting with the session’s audience. Invited Sessions organizers will select the best paper of the session they organized. If there is a tie in a given session, the paper that will be selected as the best session’s paper will be the one which have had the highest quantitative evaluations average according to its double-blind and non-blind reviews.
The selection process of the best 25%-30%, to be also published in the Journal, will be based on the sessions' best papers and the quantitative evaluation average made by its anonymous and non-anonymous reviewers. The later will be applied to papers which acceptance was based on reviews made to draft papers. Reviews of abstracts and extended abstracts will not be valid for selecting best papers according to the quantitative evaluation of the respective submissions.
1Herbert A. Simon, 1996, The Sciences of the Artificial (Third Edition), Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, (p. 111)
2Ranulph Glaville, 2010, “Keeping Faith with the Design in Design Research,” previously in Designing Design Research 2: The Design Research Publication, Cyberbridge-4D Design/drse.html, Editor Alec Robertson, De Montfort University, Leicester, 26 February 1998.
3Accessed on January 17th, 2010 at http://nelly.dmu.ac.uk/4dd//drs9.html
Ranulph Glaville, 1999, "Researching Design and Designing Research", Design Issues, vol 13 no 2. Accessed on December 18th, 2010 at http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/papers/glanville/glanville98-design.pdf
4C. Frayling, 1993, “Research in Art and Design,” Royal college of Art Research Papers, 1(1):1-5. Referenced by Pieter Jan Stappers, 2007, “Doing Design as part of Doing Research,” in Ralf Michel (Ed.), Design Research Now: essays and Selected Projects; Basel, Switzerland: Birkhäuser Verlag AG, Part of Springer Science; p. 82.
5Pieter Jan Stappers, 2007, Ibid.
6Pieter Jan Stappers, 2007, Ibid., p. 83.
7Kenneth D. Forbus, Sept. 2010, Qualitative Modeling, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science
8“Technology or Quantitative Mathematics Technology,” Nature 158, 683-684 (16 November 1946), doi:10.1038/158683a0
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